LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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59th 
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A DISCOURSE 



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OCCASIONED BY THE DEATH 



aotii iiEoi»4E:wr, -m. v. m:.. 



DELIVEKED AT BILLERICA, MAS8., 



Jxxly 31st, 1804. 



BY REV. JOHN D. SWEET 



Pastor of the Baptist Church. 



'^ AH-" 



'9"^ 



" Tongues of the Dead, not lost, 

But speaking still from Death's frost, 
Like tiery tongues at Pentecost." 

" As the Saviour's blood was shed to save sinners, so may mine in part ior my country." 

EuwD. A. Adams. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 






BOSTON: 

COMMEItriAL PRINTING HOUSE, .36 KILBY STREET. 

1864. 






^t ^pafeiiij frab. 



A DISCOURSE 



OCCASIONED BY THE DEATH OF 



ttf't. §iwMi %mm Slamis, 



SOth REOIIMCEI^'T, »I . V. >1 . , 




DELIVERED AT BILLErtlCA, MASS., 



J uily 31»t, 180-1. 



BY REV. JOHN D. SWEET, 



Pastor of the Baptist Church. 



" Tongues of the Dead, not lost, 
But speaking still from Death's frost, 
Like tiery tongues at Pentecost." 

' As the Saviour's blood was shed to save sinners, so may mine in part for my country." 

£dwo. a. Adams. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 



BOSTON: 

COMMEECIAL PRINTING HOUSE, 36 KILBY STREET. 

1864. 



.5 



ifdiatiflttv 



TO THE MEMORY OF THE HEROIC 

MARTYRS TO GOD AND LIBERTY, 

WHO, AS ITS SAVIOURS, HAVE MADE OBLATION OF THEIR LIFE'S 

BLOOD UPON THE ALTAR OF THEIR COUNTRY, 

THIS DISCOURSE IS INSCRIBED. 

FOR SUCH OF OUR SOLDIERS AS SHALL SCAN THESE PAGES 

MAY THE "SPEAKING DEAD" have a voice; 

MAY god's BANNER OVER THEM BE LOVE; 

MAY HE BE THEIR SHIELD AND BUCKLER IN THE DAY OF BATTLE, 

AND AT LAST GRANT THEM AN 



TO AN EVERLASTING HOME IN THE SKIES. 



jjsakiug f BE^. 



HEB. xl. 4. 

"HE BEING DEAD YET SPEAKETH." 

Then they whom we call dead have voices for us ! Such had 
Abel he whose soul clad in its vestment of liaht first stooped, 
solitary and alone, before the throne of God, sole representative 
of the Redeemed Church. And so of all the " sleeping dead, 
none are mute, none tongueless or speechless. The sealed lips 
of mortality to be sure shall no more be heard on the shores ot 
time, but yet the dead speak to u. by the lives which they have 
lived. Departing they leave 

'• Footprints on the sands of Time," — 

a harvest of weal or woe to be gathered by the successive gen- 

erations. , ,, ^ ,^ 

Not many weeks ago we laid in its narrow house, the cold 
clay casket of a lovely maiden ; a little later we observed the 
funeral rites of a Mother, fallen in the strife of life ; still more 
recently we gathered in the sanctuary to take a final eave ot 
all that was mortal of one whose young life had been yielded up 
in his country's service ; the quick expanding perennial blade 
has not "decked the hallowed mould" since we fol owed to 
the grave the crumbling clay tabernacle of an aged Mother in 
Israel; nor have five suns set, since we stood around the bier 
of one whose earthly sun had been obscured in the meridian ot 



life's little day. Of all these it may be said, " being- dead they 
yet speaky Like echoes amid the gorges of stupendous moun- 
tains their voices shall forever sound down the corridors of 
time, and like the immortal, the nobler part, which has gone 
hence, these voices were not born to die, but to speak on, on 
amid eternity^ s ceaseless round of eras and cycles. 

And now, once more, wherefore are we here assembled? 
"Why this large assemblage, this presence of fellow-citizens 
without distinction, of the honorable Trustees,* teachers and 
pupils of the Howe High School, of war worn soldiers, rem- 
nants of war-shattered regiments, or representatives, perhaps, 
of the immortal 59th ? Why this sombre black, whose drapery 
of woe meets our vision, for the moment dimming the lustre 
which beams from the stars of our flag ? Wherefore all these ? 
They, too, all have " speaking voices,'^ which together with the 
tears that course down these cheeks, these habiliments of grief, 
and the silence that reigns around, in language; which is un- 
mistakable, inform me that once again we are in the house of 
mourning. 

• My friends, as we assemble here to-day we are reminded that 
we are not the only mourners for departed worth and blighted 
joy in this land of ours. Through the length and breadth of 
Columbia there this day ascends from ten-thousands of homes 
,the wail of the widow and the orphan, the childless and the 
brotherless. 

" Tliere is no fireside howso'cr dcfendcfl, 
But haes one vacantj chair." 

" The air is full of farewells for the dying 
And mournings for the dead, 
The heart of Rachel for her children weeping, 
Will not be comforted." 

Not as yet can it be said as once of the subjects of a hardened 
king, — " There was not a house where there was not one 

* Dea. Amos Spaulding, Col. John Baldwin, Marshall Preston, Esq., Dca. James R. 
Faulkner, Geo. H. Whitman, Esq., Dudley Foster, Esq., Wm. H. Odiorne, Esq. 
f By absencp or death. 



dead," * — but surely it may safely be averred there is not a 
household exempt from the universal lamentation which ascends 
from a grief-stricken people. 

Prior to the consideration of our text a succinct sketch of 
the quickly-run and abruptly-terminated course of Sergeant 
Adams, that consideration to be succeeded by an enforcement 
from his life and character of the sentiments of our theme. 

I. A brief narrative of the life of the subject of our esti- 
mation. 

II. A review of our text. 

III. An application and enforcement from the life and char- 
acter of our subject. 

I. Edward Amos Adams was the son of Amos Adams, 
Esq., of Westford, Mass., and Susan Dodge, of Charlestown, 
Mass. He was born at Billerica, Nov. 25, 1839. In early 
childhood he was left without a father, and the tender thought 
was reared under the affectionate tuition of a devoted mother. 
At the early age of twelve he entered the Howe High School, 
where he remained about four years. His course here was 
marked by great diligence. With zeal he received the means 
of knowledge and improvement afforded him, and used as not 
abusing them, and graduated with high honors. He subse- 
quently sailed upon two voyages to sea,f twice visiting our 
antipodes ; and for several terms taught in the schools of his 
native town. At the age of twenty-two he became a subject of 
Divine Grace in regeneration, made a public profession of re- 
ligion by baptism into Christ, and was received into the fellow- 
ship of the Baptist Church of Billerica. 

From the commencement of our sad intestine war he ever 
manifested a lively interest in the national welfare, and upon the 
call by the Government, Sept. 1863, for 300,000 volunteers, for 
three years' service, he was the first to enlist from his own town. 
He connected himself with the 59th Regiment M. V. M., as 
Sergeant accompanied his command to the seat of war,:|: " went 
into the fearful charge of the 17th of June," (Battle of Peters- 



* Ex. xil, .30. 

t AVith Capt. Ranlett, ship Surprise. 

t Extract of letter from his brave commanrting offleor, Col. J. K. F. Gould , since deceased 
in couscquence of wounds received in battle. 



burg,) and here received a wound from the effects of which, in 
conjunction with disease, he rapidly sunk awaj'-, and June 27, 
1864, at City Point Hospital, Va., fell asleep in Jesus. 

Thus set the sun of Edward A. Adams, with full day efful- 
gence. His spirit, like a long imprisoned bird, has winged its 
way to the God who gave it. His body sleeps soundly beneath 
the Southern sod to-day. 

" Though trumpet may sound and loud cannon rattle, 
He heeds not, he hears not, lie's free from all pain, 
He sleeps his last sleep, he's fought his last battle. 
No sound can awake him to glory again." 

No, my friends, not to the fleeting empty glory of this nether 
sphere, but amid the celestial glories of the upper firmament, 
we doubt not that the disenthralled spirit shines, one more star 
in that bright and innumerable constellation, which reflects the 
brightness and glory of the fountain of uncreated light. Aye, 
and though the earthly tabernacle has been removed from its 
place among us, yet in the thoughts and deeds of by-gone days, 
Edward " still lives." 

" HE BEING DEAD YET SPEAKETH." 

H. Now let us divert our minds a little from the subject of 
our solemn regard and tribute, to that which is wrapped up in 
our text, and as an embryo of fertile and useful and solemnly 
important truths let us unfold it. 

(1) Death. 

(2) The Speech op the Dead. 

(1st.) Death ! My hearers, it should not be a painful thing 
for us at times to contemplate, and take some serious thought, of 
that Messenger who so soon, at the farthest, will summon us 
hence. It were for our advantage often to look into our own 
graves, that thereby, to take off the terror of them, we might be 
led to gaze into the tomb where our Lord lay and learn the 
price of our ransom from its jaws. Not that we should so dwell 
upon death as through "fear" of it to be "all our lifetime sub- 



ject to bondage,"* but give the subject that wholesome thought 
which shall make us both better and wiser men. 

We speak now not of a second death, the inevitable retribu- 
tion of those who receive not the merit of Christ's efficacious 
atonement by faith, but of the first, to the wicked indeed but 
the sad precursor of the second, to the Christian like the angel 
to Peter, breaking open the prison door and leading forth to the 
light and liberty of eternal day. 

It should not be an unprofitable inquiry for any one of us, — 
What is death ? It is the middle point between two lives ; a 
probationary and a retributive existence, both lives but infi- 
nitely unlike, since one is mortal, the other immortal ; one 
dying, the other undying ; one (to the Christian) a foretaste, 
the other fruition. For all our inquiries as rational creatures, 
we have one safe referee, one faithful arbiter, this Holy 
Volume, 

" It is the judge that ends the strife, 
When wit and reason fail." 

With reference to the subject under consideration let us 
make it the " man of our counsel." 

Death is represented in the Heavenly Oracle under various 
emblems, which severally portray its character. 

At one time we hear it described as a sleep^ to express how 
calm and tranquil its repose, from which there is a joyful 
waking, for though "weeping may endure" for the brief night of 
earth, "joy cometh in the morning" of the resurrection. Anon 
the Psalmist of Israel represents death under a sterner and 
more forbidding aspect, depicted as the desolating floodX, over- 
whelming and irresistible, likened to the mower's scythe% lev- 
elling all ranks irrespectively like the grass which is cut down 
by the unthinking swain. 

" There is a Reaper, whose name is Death, 
And with his sickle keen 
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath, 
And the flowers that grow between." 

* Heb. ii, 15. f John, xi, 11. t J Psalms, Ix, 5, 6. 



Again we find the "Royal Promise pleader" portraying death 
as a shadoiv* so like an unsubstantial dream as compared with 
the substance which his prophetic vision descried sliould be van- 
quished by death's great Abolisher who took away death's sting 
by allowing it to be sheathed in His own body.f The "Valley 
of the shadow," a vale of tears and darkness to be sure, but 
quickly bounded and conducting to Mount Zion and the City 
of the living God. 

Such are a few from many of the similitudes under which 
Death is represented. Involved and obscured in his robes of 
darkness, he seems grim indeed, but divest, denude him of his 
mask, (which the Grace of God alone can do for us,) and that 
monster of darkness stands forth an angel of light, to conduct 
to realms of eternal day. 

My hearers, there are many things which it is profitable for 
us to learn here upon earth, but I think I may safely aflirm 
there is no knowledge which we can with as little safety neglect 
as this, 

1st. That ive must all die I 

2d. That we may die soon ! 

We must all die ! How momentous a thought I And yet 
men trifle with life as if it were a coil of infinite length which 
could never be shuffled off. We must all die. We are Ijorn to 
die. Man's life has been compared to a book, his birth the 
title-page, his death the finis which closes up all. Therefore 
the volume of our life may be a mere romance or a solemn 
reality ; it may be fairer or plainer bound ; it may be longer or 
shorter ; but at the last finis, death comes in and closes up all, 
for it is the end of all. Yes, when our "determined days, 
numbered months, appohited bounds which we cannot pass"^: 
are all completed, we must all die! There is no " exemption,''' no 
" commutation clause'' for us here to avail ourselves of; " there is 
no discharge in this war." § We must all die ! The decree 
has gone forth "dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return," || 



* Psalm xxili, 4. 

t " Death stung himself to death when he stung Christ."— i?c>n)at«e. 

|.Jobxiv,5. $ Eccl. viii, 8. || Gen, iii, 19. 



9 

and it is a decree which has been executed npon all the myriads 
of mankind who. have walked the earth since the pristine inno- 
cency of paradise, with two exceptions only, the translated ones, 
all have tasted death. Under this sad covenant all ages -and 
conditions are comprehended. 

The Destroyer poisons and disappoints earth's brightest 
hopes. What rite regarded as prefiguring so much of happi- 
ness here below as the marriage-service ? And yet mark its 
winding up, how death creeps in even here ! — "To have and to 
hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for 
poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, — till 
death do us part P\ So he alway: comes in at the last. As 
nature's day is succeeded by its night, so the span of life's little 
day by the shadow of death's dusk. 

And not .only upon all conditions but upon the cold bosom of 
all ages death lays his leaden sceptre. Old age withers before 
its palsying stroke. I read of one Guerricus, who was humbled 
to the foot of the cross at reading this announcement : "And 
all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty 
years, and he died; and all the days of Methuselah* were nine 
hundred and sixty and nine years, and he diedJ^j And so of Seth 
and Enos and Jared and others. Neither does the relentless 
Visitant spare the strong man in the meridian of his days and 
strength, nor yet the 

" Young and strong who cherished 
Noble longings for the strife ;" 

like grapes plucked before fully ripe. No, my friends, for if 
youth or vigor, nobleness or virtue had been a shield or 
defence from the death-darts of the foe, we had not gathered 
here to-day, to honor the memory of the brave and the true. 

And relative to our dissolution, there is secondly this solemn 
thought, We may die soon ! 

No man knows the hour or day of his death, not more than 



* Methuselah signifies " he dies.'" " The longest liver that ever was, carried death in 
his name, that he might be reminded of its coming surely, though it came slowly."— H#nrj/. 
tGen. 5. 



10 

he is informed of that wherein the "Son of Man cometh.'* 
AHke the Master and his messenger shall appear in an hour 
that we think not of, and as a thief in the night. Of all the 
generations of men, we have on record only three individuals 
the exact time of whose death was ever foretold : — Hezekiah* 
fifteen years : Hannaniahf one year ; the rich fool| one day. 

My friends, at every swing of the pendulum a spirit is ushered 
into eternity ! Our turn may come next ; at the furthest it will 
be very very soon ! What then should be our conduct with such 
enlightenment ? " Turn to God one day before your death," 
said Rabbi Eliezer to his disciples. " But how can a man," 
replied they, " know the day of his death ?" " True," said 
Eliezer, " therefore you should turn to God todai/ ; perhaps you 
may die to-morrow." We should therefore live each day and 
hour as though the announcement of the Lord to King Hezekiah 
were ringing in our ears : — " Set thine house in order ; for thou 
shalt die and not live."§ But oh how grievous the apathy 
which distinguishes us all in view of life's uncertainties. We 
live as if, like Adam and Abel, we had never seen a person die, 
and as though the destroyer of mortal felicities were an unknown 
visitant, whereas he stalks among us with a high hand, and our 
vacant seats, the slabs of yonder cemeteries, ri\ ailing in their 
coldness and whiteness the forms that sleep beneath, the long 
train of bereaved hearthstones rendered desolate by the enginery 
of destructive war, and the scene before us to-day, should each 
be to us preachers of mortality, reminding us that our turn may 
come next. And hence the necessity of having the " loins 
girded about, and the lights burning." 

" Every night brings us nearer, nearer, and every departing sun 
Bids us take heart and labour, for soon will our work be done." 

But, my hearers, though we must all die, and tliough toe may 
die soon, there is one for whom this knowledge has no terrors. 
Whom we mean is obvious. What is death to the Believer ? 
As a desolating flood, or a valley deep and dark, hath it terrors 
for him ? Ah, no ; to the wicked the day of death may be 

♦Isaiah, 38. f Jer. xxviii, 16, 17. | Luke, xi. 20. ij ? Kings, xx, 1. 



11 

dark, but to the Christian it is a bright day, inlinitely brighter 
than tlie day of his birth. As the cloud which had a dark side 
for the Egyptians had a bright side for the Israelites, so death 
which lowers ominously upon the wicked for the good hath 
nothing but bright beams, or a dark night before a brighter 
and everlasting to-morrow. 

As we liave before intimated, the flower of the morning is not 
more fading or the rainbow of the evening more transitory, 
than is the narrow handbreadth, the little span of the "tale-told," 
our lives. But this, so far from being fraught with alarm to 
the Clu'istian, is the great stay of his hope and the corner-stone 
of his building, that his '* rest is not here ;" that here he is but 
a "stranger, a pilgrim and a sojourner," having no "continuing 
city," but hastening to a "better coimtry, that is a Heavenly ;" 
that this mortal tenement is but a " prison house whose cribs 
and bars confine the soul,"* like the movable tents of- Patri- 
archal life, in which the undying, the nobler part, is but a 
^' guest," a lodger for the brief night of earth ; the " lengthened 
cords" and " strengthened stakes" of the tabernacle state once 
removed, and like an unfettered slave the winged soul flies to 
the light of perpetual day and liberty unrestrained at God's 
right hand. So death is the messenger of peace to the believer, 
and the day of his death is the day of his joy. We remember 
the inquiry of Paul, "who shall deliver me from the body of 
this death ?"t The response is to be found in the believer's 
gain, since for him the death of the body quite destroys the 
body of death. 

There is another view of our text upon which we must descant 
for a moment, and for a moment only it need be, since already 
we have anticipated its instructions. 

" He being dead yet speaketh^ 

"The Speaking Dead !" Who does not love to regard our 
dead as still, in their now and infinitely extended spheres of 
action, exerting influences which like themselves can never 



* Rev. John F. Bigelow. 
t Romans, vli, •J4. 



die ! But while the dead to us, but the aUve to Christ, in their 
state of everlasting cessation from tlie restless vicissitudes of life 
have eternal voices, for us who a little longer tarry here below, 
how do they speak, and what do they say ? We read of a rich 
man speaking from his place of torment, and we remember his 
language ; but what is the burden of their speech who inhabit 
the regions of the blest ? Ah ! my friends, for you or for me it 
is not to penetrate that vail. The Revelator in his Patmos 
vision, through the door "ajar upon its golden hinges," caught 
some faint glimpse of the glory within and some faint whisper 
of the ceaseless anthem. But in our cases, 

" Ear hath not heard, nor eye hath seen, 
Its swelling songs, or its changeless sheen," 

so as to reveal those " secret things which belong to God." 

The speech, then, of the " speaking dead" which we would 
have you hear and heed this hour, comes not down from the 
heavens, neither does it come up from the grave, "for there is 
no work nor device, nor knowledge nor wisdom in the grave."* 
It is the voice which speaks from a life and character that still 
moves and acts among us. 

It is a gratifying but an overwhelming reflection that man 
has two immortalities ; the one he lives yonder, the other he 
leaves behind him ; so that no word spoken by human lips can 
ever be unspoken, no deed done can ever be undone, no thought 
can ever be unthought ; they shall ever exert a power for weal 
or woe, till time shall be no more. One of America's greatest 
sons upon his death-bed said, as his last mortal words, " I still 
live." He spoke of the breath which was in his nostrils. We 
lay greater stress upon his last earthly utterance, and what he 
said of himself as a mortal man, we say of him in the various 
media whereby he still lives and " speaketh," and forever shall 
for good or for evil among the generations of men. There is a 
little verse, 

" Kind words can never die." 
* Eccl. U, 10. 



We should be solemnly impressed with the reflection that what 
is so true of the "kind" and good is equally true of the evil— 
neither can " ever die." 

So, then, when we die let us remember that the lives we have 
lived' cannot die with us ; they shall ever live on, on, a blessing 
or a curse. " He who is not for me is against me." We cannot 
die neutral. 

" HE BEING DEAD YET SPEAKETH." 

And of him shall this be said whose memory we assemble this 

day to honor ? 

Oh, yes, the dust which sleeps where the missiles of war and 
the shafts of disease have hurried it beneath the Southern sod, 
has no voice for us indeed, but the unloosed tongue of the spirit 
speaketh this hour amid the realms of the glorified, while the 
character of our brother still walks the world in the power of 
its influence. 

I have now done with my text, and I have another text yet to 
preach upon, supplied me in the life and character of him 
whose obsequies we have assembled, irrespective of all denomi- 
national distinctions, to observe. We have addressed you con- 
cerning death ; permit me now with a better compendium to 
speak a few words concerning the living; for such are the 
''sleeping dead.'' We come not to speak the panegyric of 
sergeant Adams, for his life is his best eulogy, and we would 
refrain from adding affliction to the afflicted by tearing open 
afresh the wounds of bleeding hearts. How shall we here 
portray before you the life and character of the Patriot Hero 
and the Christian Martyr, for such we characterize those who 
die the Christian's death in the service of their country ! Shall 
we represent before you his extraction or genealogy ? These 
were indeed honorable, but by what the virtues of others pur- 
chased the dead do not speak, neither shall we choose to declare 
other minor points, but in a fourfold capacity we shall note that 
which is worthy of imitation in us all. Consider the 

SON, SCHOLAR, rATRIOT AND CHRISTIAN. 

The Son. To the youth before us we especially commend 



14 

this consideration. Tlie childhood and youth of Edward 
Adams were formed under the influences of a Christian home. 
It could be said of him as of one of old, " he was his Father's 
son, tender and only beloved in the sight of his Mother."* But 
more may be added to this of his own love and regard for the 
Parents of his youth, or Parent we should say, for as we have 
before stated the Father died while Edward was very young. 
In the opportunity which has been accorded me to examine the 
writings of the deceased I have made some selections. Under 
date of Aug. 25, 1859, I find '* Rules for Action f and among 
them is this one: — " I will listen to the counsels of my friends, 
especially of my Mother, whose pure love, a Mother's love, must 
ever desire my true good." This is the key note to the char- 
acter of the man, for he who loves and respects his Mother 
obeys a Divine commandf and is generallp on the Lord's side. 

Again Feb. 22d, 1864, from his journal, six months since, by 
which we learn that his was an affection and devotion which 
manhood did not, as is too often the case, extinguish : — " I do 
not half value my good mother, or what she has done for me." 
And still more recently. May 25, from Fredericksburg, Va., 
while visiting the grave of Washington's Mother : — "I viewed 
with veneration the resting place of this worthy woman, and 
wished I could be as good a son to you as hers to lierT But if 
his words much more his life, (for this ever has a voice much 
the more potent of the two,) expresses special regard for parental 
teachings and requirements, a freedom from everything like 
death, a spirit which forgot as well as forgave, and equally 
sought pardon for every, even the slightest wrong, an affection 
which was manly while it was dutiful, such were some of the 
characteristics of the son. A Mother's grief should be assuaged 
at this remembrance, and that the departed has gone to his 
home in the skies, and numbers one of the household of Christ. 
The younger Brother gone to the Elder, the son to the Father's 
house. So therefore as a <Sow, " He being dead yet speaketh .'" 



* Proverbs iv, 3, f Ex. xx, VI 



15 

• 

The Scholar. Although some eight years have elapsed 
since the connection of our subject with the Howe School, I 
am confident that it will be gratifying to such of his fellows as 
are present on this occasion to hear brief mention made of his 
school days. With this institution they commenced in 1852, 
and continued 11 terms, (nearly four years. ) During this period 
he was nearly fitted for college, but circumstances, of health, 
prevented the further prosecution of his studies. The leading 
traits of character which predominated in and marked^ his 
school-days, were a hearty enthusiasm and burning ambition to 
excel, and (as his instructor for a portion of this period, present 
here to-day, can testify,*) his diligence was rewarded by a high 
degree of proficiency in all departments. 

In a letter dated July 15, 1859, he thus alludes to his Alma 
Mater, "I would pay to the Howe High School, so widely known 
and justly esteemed, the tribute of respect and affection which 
is its due." To the last we find the scholar entertaining a high 
degree of regard for the school of his youth. At its annual 
examination the 8th inst., some two weeks subsequent to his 
death, a missive was received from sergeant Adams by a mem- 
ber of the Institutional Trusteesf, accompanied by relics from 
the battle-field, which now grace the collection of the school. 
Among others it contained these words, the last which he will 
ever address to you from the shores of time : — "My respects to 
the scholars and will try and remember them." Former asso- 
ciates of the departed, you know, better than I can tell you, his 
worth. He cannot return to you, but what is much better, if 
prepared when the summons comes, you can go to him, where 
the transient of earth shall be made permanent, and the friend- 
ship of saints in light be durable and undying. Let us all be 
humble learners in the school of Christ, that we may join with 
our Brother and the Angelic host in the acquisition of a knowl- 
edge of which we here but learn the alphabet, and like them 
ever "desire to look into" the vast volume of God's mysterious 
love in the archives of eternity. As the Scholar also, we think 
we may say of Edward Adams : — ^^He being dead yet speaketh!'* 

* Stephen Oilman, Esq. t Geo. H- Whitmim, Esq. 



16 

The Patriot. There have fallen in our country's service 
men of more public prominence, but,wc doubt whether among 
the martyrs to universal liberty (for we battle for human rights 
everywhere,) there have 'been many more heroic spirits than 
sergeant Adams. From the first his course was distinguished 
by a self-sacrificing devotion to what he regarded as God's own 
cause, the cause of Him who never takes a step backward in the 
government of human affairs. His object in entering the ranks 
was jiot, I think, in the least degree a mercenary one ; I believe 
him to have been actuated in the step taken by a double im- 
pulse. 1st, a generous and high-minded devotion to that blood- 
bought and nobly bequeathed legacy, our Republic. 2d, a cov- 
eting for the holy lucre of gaining souls to Christ. 

These are not surmises, but our judgment from what our eyes 
have seen and ears heard. In his carefully kept and quite 
voluminous Journal, sent home from camp, we find under date 
of Nov. 25, 1863, this record : 

"My birthday. Am 24 years old to-day. Rose at 4 o'clock 
and implored Divine protection and favor in war and battle. 
At 11 1-2 o'clock signed the roll for the defence of my country. 
This deed honors my birthday, and I hope I may be permitted 
to perform something in her service, and help to restore peace 
and Union." 

Dec. 7. Rose at 4 o'clock ; after attending to prayer, rode 
horseback to town, and in presence of rising sun I took the oath 
of allegiance to the United States, standing with uncovered 
head beneath Esq. Parker's gr(fet elm. He witnessed. I held 
up my right hand. May I prove true ! This is the first oath 
that I have ever taken, and am glad I did not take it yesterday 
(Sabbath Day.) Mother needs Abraham's faith in laying me 
upon the altar of God and her country. May Heaven bless 
her in making this great sacrifice and preserve me." 

Surely a heroic spirit breathes from out such words as this ; 
but I think it grew more martyr like as it approached the ter- 
mination of its earthly career. Not long ere the van of his 
advancing column plunged into the combat of "confused noise 



17 

and garments rolled in blood,"* sergeant Adams penned this 
consecration of his life blood upon the altar of his country : — 
" As the Saviour'' s blood ivas shed to save sinners^ so may mine 
in part for my country.'''' 

My friends, seek through all the annals of nations from the 
history of God's chosen Israel, the palmy days of Grecian valor, 
and our own historic struggle for liberty in the revolution to 
the present moment, and a more heroic and magnanimous 
sentiment than is here expressed is not to be found. 

Many in Divine' presence to-day recall a scene within the 
walls of this dedicated sanctuary, when, upon the day conse- 
crated to the memory of our Savior's birth, you here assembled 
to pray for a nation's weal. That gathering of our citizens was 
at the suggestion and through the immediate influence of our 
Brother. Together with other patriots he occupied yonder 
seat, and when he took his position for a season behind this 
pulpit, you remember his burning words : — "We, too, may 
fall with the foe ; comrades, we may die. But welcome death 
in this glorious cause ! Let us adopt the motto of brave sol- 
diers— 'Fear not death, men; but fear dishonor.' Let us 
remember that if it shall be our lot to lay down our lives in 
our country's service, we shall forever live in the hearts of the 
good and brave.'''' 

It was with such sentiments as these, that, till his departure 
for the seat of war, a period of two months, sergeant Adams 
addressed audiences frequently at Boston, (once, by request, 
the Mayor and Aldermen of that city,) Cambridge, Woburn, 
Neponset, <fcc., &c. Early and late, in season and out, without 
expectation of emolument or hope of reward, he labored for 
the promotion of enlistments, and by his cogent reasoning, 
pungent wit and eloquent appeals, enforced most of all by his 
example, scores* were joined to the ranks of the "Army for the 
Union." Amid all his enthusiastic endeavors one thing shone 
preeminent, the firmjiess with which he maintained the integ- 
rity of his character ; his zeal never made him other than true 
to his pymciples, as we learn from this record, brief, but 

* Isaiah ix;, 5. 



18 

speaking volumes : — ^^"Jan. 28. Four sailors wanted to enlist if 
I would treat them. I ivouldnH do it /" A most befitting 
example surely to many other, we fear not always overscru- 
pulous ones, placed in the same position. 

The fervor of our hero did not abate as he went forth on his 
errand of love and liberty. At Fredericksljurg he was offered 
a position in the Hospital ; but no ! others less able could fill 
such posts, his place was at the front, and to the front he 
marched and at the front he fell. After the bloody charge in 
which he received his death wound, by the hand of another he 
writes : " I hope this wound will prove for my spiritual good," 
and he suggests that if obliged to leave the ranks he> may be 
able to obtain some other situation in which to serve his coun- 
try. He best serves her by his death, for not a drop of blood 
fallen upon the bosom of her soil in this great contest, but that 
hath a voice which appeals to the universal heart of man. It 
shall spring up and bear fruit an hundred fold to the glory of 
God and the general good of the human race. 

So, then, as a Patriot, '■'■He being' dead ijet speaketh" 

" How sleep the brave who sink to rest, 
By all their country's wishes blest. 
By forms unseen their dirge is sung, 
By fairy hands their knell is rung; 
Tnere honor comes, a pilgrim grey, 
To de:k the shrine that wraps their clay ; 
And honor doth awhile repair, 
To mourn a weeping hermit there." 

The Christian. What sermons could not comprehend or 
volumes compass, we express when we say Edward A. Adams 
was a Christian. "Religion is the top-stone of ■ the completed 
edifice."* We have previously announced that upon his 24th 
birthday he enlisted in the service of his country. Upon his 
22d, by public profession, he enlisted under the blood-stained 
banner of Prince Immanuel. In the one he acknowledged his 
Saviour, in the other he laid himself a saviour upon the altar of 
his country. 

" On my 22d birthday," he writes in his journal, " I was 



*Ke,. C. W. Anable. 



19 

baptized ;* for this I thank the Saviour of men, who has had 
mercy upon me, and whom I desire to keep me in the way of 
truth and life." What his life has been since his personal dedi- 
cation you full well know. He has not "appeared empty before 
the Lord ;" has ever brought those sacrifices which are not 
despised of God, "a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite 
heart." His have not been great achievements to dazzle in the 
eyes of the world, but the quiet, unobtrusive inner walk, which 
equally bespeaks the indwelling presence of the Holy Comforter. 
The key-note to his Christian character we find in his memo- 
randum written of a friend : " Jan. 18, 1864.— We finally talked 
of religion. He does not think Christ a Redeemer. I told him 
I did:' A fitting response, to that inquiry of our Lord, "What 
think ye of Christ?! "And this view of Christ as formed in his 
heart the hope of glory, we find often expressed in his Diary by 
prayers in the name of Christ for "pre-eminence in virtue and 
the Divine image ;" frequently he implores "pardon for all his 
sins ;" frequently, as recorded Nov. 28, 1863, we learn of his 
rising before the break of day and going forth to some secluded 
place to pray for "wisdom, knowledge and blessing." 

His piety finds exhibition in his reverence for all the righteous 
commands of God :— "Dec. 15, 1863, Sunday. I desire to keep 
this day ; if we do not keep the Lord's-day he will not keep us." 
Another evidence of the hope within him was his love for the 
Sabbath School. Many of us doubtless recall those words 
which were among the last to his fellow-pupils in the Sabbath 
School : "Would you live long and well ? honor thy Father and 
thy Mother; but we hold a similar relation of obedience to the 
Divine Parent. In obeying the one we are learning to obey the 
other, and if we yield a ready obedience to earthly parents the 
more' so shall we to that Heavenly Parent, when we feel sub- 
mission to Himi to be our reasonable service." 

His piety was characterized by obedience to that covenant 
obligation which reads, "We will not forsake the assembling of 
ourselves together." He was true to this sacred contract. 

The abundance of Grace in his heart bespoke itself thus at 
one of the last social religious meetings which he attended: 
" I may be tempted like Peter to deny our Lord, from which 

* By Rev. T. C Russell. t Matthew xxil, 42. 



20 

may I be saved. I feel grounded in the hope of the Gospel, 
and am sure of my hope of eternal life, and am persuaded that 
neitlier death nor life, &c. &c."* 

His language at one of the Union meetings in yonder house 
is worthy of remembrance. He invited all to enlist as "Soldiers 
of the Cross," adding, "I had rather be a doorkeeper in the 
house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness." 
And did my Brother carry this noble spirit away with him ? 
Was he so "rooted and grounded" in the faith as to "endure 
hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ ?"t Too many we 
know forget to carry their religion with them into life's highest 
and lowest and life's universal places. Was it so with Sergeant 
Adams? Let us see. Shortly aftei' his departure from home 
I hear of him as addressing the deaf and dumb at their institu- 
tion and pointing them to Jesus : — "Were the Saviour of men 
now before you personally, you would ask Him to heal you, but 
though this cannot be you may all obtain from Him a 
greater gift, even eternal life, given to all who believe." A 
little later at the afternoon Union Meeting at the Meionian, 
Boston: "I am a soldier of the United States Army, and 
esteem it a great honor. I am also a soldier of the Army of 
the Lord, which I esteem a much greater honor." Again I am 
apprised of him in camp addressing the intemperate of his reg- 
iment ; and still later, while on tlie march, the profligate and 
profane. And finally, from the front he writes : "I desire to 
preserve my integrity among these men and set them an exam- 
ple of good behavior." And did his desire prove father to the 
deed ? Let the following speak for itself. 

In a letter from Hospital 9th Corps, City Point, Ya., written 
by Rev. J. I. Smith, of the noble Christian Commission, is em- 
braced this testimony, comforting to a Mother's heart, precious 
to us all. "I inquired his state of preparation for Heaven ; to 
this he uniformly answered hopefully, comfortably and peace- 
fully towards the last. * * * * The reputation of your 
son was unblemished alike as a soldier and a companion. 
Members of his regiment speak of him as a favorite." My 

* Koraans viii, 38. t 2 Timothy, ii, 3. 



21 

friends, shall we not bless God for such an endorsement ; shall 
we not praise His Holy name for the men after His own heart, 
who are stationed amid the scene;- of our national strife to 
smooth and tranquillize the last hours of our good and brave ! 

Thus Edward Amos Adams lived the Christian's life and died 
the Christian's death. The Mother has lost a true and noble 
son, the seminary of learning one of its brightest lights, the 
country one of its truest patriots ; but these losses are all ex- 
ceeded in that the world has lost, what it least can spare, a 
Christian ! * 

We have now done with the second text of our discourse, the 
sleeping but the '■'■speaking' deadr He lived as we all should 
live ; he died as I fain would die, even the death of the righteous, 
in his country's service. His life was short as the world esti- 
mates life, but if that life is longest which best answers life's 
great end, then Sergeant Adams died, if not full of "days" at 
least of "riches and honor." And gracious the assurance 
that he "still lives" in the thoughts and deeds of bygone days, 
"still speaks" through the media of a pure life, like the setting 
sun leaves a trail of light and glory behind, to illuminate other 
heavenward bound pilgrims on their ^upward course. The 
pure and good, my hearers, are not ot any age ; they live in 
our memories and "their works do follow them." Hence we 
need bring no precious spices to embalm our dead in Christ, for 
their image is enshrined in the choicest recesses of the heart's 
affections. 

Let us be humbly thankful at this time that though our 
Brother died in a land of strangers, he fell asleep in the ever- 
lasting arms of a "Friend that sticketh closer than a brother," 
and had for his pillow the bosom of a reconciled God. The 
silver cord has indeed been loosed, and the golden bowl broken , 
the pitcher broken at the fountain and the wheel at the cistern, 



* In a small diary taken from the pocket of Sergeant Adams after his decease, and re- 
ceived since thi's Discourse entered the press, are found these cheering testimonies : 

" May 4, 1864. 1 desire strength to carry what I have, htit wish to keep mij Bible, if 
nothing ehc!" 

"Asked them how they knew I was a professed Christian? By mij behaviour. This 
pleased me, and I desire 1o merit the appellation in truth and deed." 



22 

but oh how glad and elevating the thought that from these 
broken aqueducts and cisterns, a disenthralled soul has been 
transported to the inexhaustible fountain of being and benefi- 
cence, forever to "drink of the rivers of God's pleasures," where 
all that was wanting in fuller glory is now made up. 

" Nobly thy course is run, 
Splendor is round it ; 
Bravely tliy fight is won, 
Martyrdom crowned it." 

Bereaved hearts, at such a time as this I turn to you. As 
we have before said, you are not the only mourners in this 
land, aye, in this community of ours. From our different pul- 
pits have been paid the last fond tributes to the memory of the 
two Gilmans, a Patten, a Hannaford, the victims of our sad 
war ; and others, former students of the Howe School or resi- 
dents of our town, and in some cases members of our churches, 
Hutchins, Farwell, Plympton, Sanborn, Sumner, Parker, Col- 
lins, Morrissey,* sleep in the soldier's grave. 

But, mourning friends, we know full well that while sym- 
pathisers and sharers in your grief, other aching hearts cannot 
fill the vacuum in your own, for each heart alone "knows its 
own bitterness." 

But when Mary and Martha went to weep over the grave of 
their brother, we remember that Jesus repaired there also, and 
we are told that He who always loved to follow in the footsteps 
of sorrow and heal the broken hearted, He veiled the majesty 
of the Godhead in the tenderness of the friend ; He was a 
weeping man by the grave of Lazarus ! Jesus wept ! 

A better precedent we cannot have, and so we come to 
"weep with you who weep," to mourn with you who mourn, 
but we come above all to seek that Grace which shall enable 
you to weep as though you wept not, and to mourn as though you 
mourned not, because that to each one of us "the time is short 
and the fashion of this world passeth away." 



* The last three enlisted at the same time, and in the same Regiment, with Edward 
Adams. The heavy tidings of their death were received upon the day succeeding that upon 
which this sermon was preached- Of the 59th Regiment which left the State six months 
since, there are, after tliis sliort campaign, but one hundred efficient men remauiing. So 
fearful arc the ravajjes of our sad war. 



23 

And as we have a precedent for our condolence, you stricken 
Mother have one for your grief, and most blessed of all, Jesus 
figures in them both. We refer to a scene eighteen centuries 
ago, hard by the gate of the city of Nain. A train of anguished 
hearts is emerging thence ; the chief mourner is a mother ; the 
dead her son. There is a remarkable coincidence between that 
case and your own. Like your's, the dead was a young man^ 
the desire of her eyes seized in his flower and bloom. Like 
your's he was an only son ; all her heart-strings had entwined 
around his ; he was the earth-idol which had filled a large niche 
in her heart's temple. To complete the affliction the bereaved 
Mother, like yourself, was a Widoiv, like yourself had no hus- 
band to say to her as Elkanah to Hannah : — "Why is thy heart 
grieved ? Am not I better to thee than ten sons ?"* 

And we are told that Jesus had compassiomupon the widow 
and the childless ; and He who came to mitigate earth's sorrows 
counselled her to "weep not." That commisseration, that 
counsel. He this hour extends to you ; He to whom the re- 
deemed soul of the gone before by virtue of the betrothment 
of a by-past eternity is now wedded ; "He thy Maker and thy 
Husband, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel."! 

Dear friends, your sorrow cannot be prevented, but it can be 
alleviated and improved. To this end we assume that preroga- 
tive bequeathed by Christ's herald as a peculiar legacy to the 
Christian, and bid you "behold the Lamb of Godf which 
taketh away the sin" and not only so but the '■'■sorrow of the 
world !" 

Why should you weep for him from whose eyes all tears are 
wiped ? Why should you bemoan family ties sundered when 
the departed has but a little preceded you to the only family 
which cannot be divided ? Why lament the Christian and 
Patriot Martyr when from the din and smoke of battle he has 
gone to that realm where, as in the upper, the third region of 
the air, there are said to be no clouds nor storms, no thunder- 
ings nor lightnings, so on that brighter shore there is no sin, 



* 1 Samuel i, 8. t Isaiah 54, 5. J John i, -,'0. 



24 

there are no troubles, "no death, neither sorrow nor crying nor 
any more pain." 

■ Oh all ye whose hearts have been made desolate by war's 
devastations, look up from your weeds and ashes, for though 
you have lost your earthly all you have not lost your God, and 
He gives thee this as the eternal pledge of His immutable 
friendship : — " I will never leave thee nor forsake thee !"* Those 
earthly clods that now heed not the footsteps and are unmoved by 
the tears of mourning hearts shall yet be delivered from their 
sepulchral slumbers fashioned like unto the glorious body of 
their risen Redeemer. Centuries or ages may write with mossy 
and mildewed fingers their ancient story on their obelisks, the 
march of Time's relentless armies eradicate and expunge all 
indications of their resting-place, mouldering decay crumble the 
fearfully and -vj/^onderfully made earthly house back to its 
Mother's bosom, yet by the pledge given thee from the open 
portals of the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, these mortal frames, 
decomposed into their original elements, shall yet start remod- 
elled and reconstructed from their precious, because redeemed, 
ashes. They whose ears are now deaf to the bugle's blast at 
the trump of the archangel shall mount to the sacramental 
armies of the skies. 

You too, the church of which our departed Brother was a 
faithful member, lament another breach in your walls, another 
"lively stone" torn from the spiritual house of earth. But as 
you have cause far your grief, so, too, you have an example, for 
so did the Patriarchal church lament Aaron and Samuel, and 
the primitive, Stephen. And like tliem you mourn not as those 
without hope, for the death of our Christian Brother has been 
but a transfer from earth's wdlderness to the Heavenly Gar- 
den, from the church militant to the Church Triumphant. 

In such an hour as the present there is this reflection, which 
should bring especial consolation, that though in nature there 
is often a cloud ivithont a bow, in grace this is never the case. 
So that when "He cometli with clouds" of sorrow and adversity, 
the "token of the covenant" between the "Faithful Promiser" 



* Hebrews xiii, 5. 



25 

and his servants of old, for the Christian has an infinitely en 
larged significance. "And it shall come to pass when I bring a 
cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen i)i the cloud."* 
Oh may we all, Mother, a widow and childless, mourning friends, 
bereaved church, all, in this season of calamity, become the glad 
recipients of that Grace which shall enable us to look away from 
our griefs and sorrows to the luminous bow, radiant, lustrous 
with hope, which spans the "storm-wreathed sky," revealing by 
its eflTulgence through rifts of the clooids, those bright constella- 
tions of the departed which gem the firmafiaent of Divine things. 
Finally. The "speaking dead" has a voice and language for 
this entire community, especially its i/outh, so largely reprc- 
resented here and participants in these sad obsequies. 

Were the now glorified spirit of the departed to put off its 
vestment of light and return to this its mortal dwelling place, 
(as incredible as that the beautiful butterfly should relapse to 
its chrysalis state,) what think ye would l>e the burden of his 
speech ? I apprehend his voice would be one of warning, and 
its language, ^'Be ye also readyr'' 

My friends, let us be taught by tlie example of our Brother 
and by his death, by the latter how uncertain our lease of life, 
by the former how to live, since to learn how to die we must 
first learn how to live. The voices from glory which sound 
through this temple to-day, the voices from the crowded cities 
of our dead, the voices from the blood-dyed fields of our coun- 
try's travail, proclaim how brittle the thread which binds your 
fragile barque to the shores of time, a breath may sunder it, a 
glance annihilate. Oh then let the anchor of your hope be 
safely lodged in the refuge of tlie "High Rock." And thus, 
linked to the Eternal Throne by the golden chain of covenant 
love, ye shall be safe, amid all tlie ebbings and flowings of this 
mortal existence, safe in death, asid &afe at last when the dis- 
quietudes of earth are forever hushed by the abiding presence 
of the Eld^n- Brother, the Everlastuig Friend. 

Tlien amid the choirs of Heaven, and among the sons of men. 
alike by mortal and immortal tongues, it sliall be told of you, — 

"re beikc dead yet speaketh." 

* Cfenesi* ix, H. 



2fi 

O N r H K I) K A Til OF 



1 lieur a voice, a f^entle voice, 

And it comes from an unseen land ; 

From one who has trod this blood stained earth : 
Now one of an angel hand. 

Dnty to God and his Country moved 

His bi-ave and manly heart ; 
And girding the soldier's armor on, 

We sadly saw him depart. 

" I go to bleed in my Country's cause, 
As the Saviour for sinners bled ; 
But in the hearts of the good and brave 
I still shall live, when dead."* 

Mid the din of battle his summons came 
To lay his armor down ; 
" Well done, thou art faithful," his Captain said ; 
'• Come and receive thy crown." 

List now to his voice as it loudly speaks 
To his comrades in the strife : 
" Oh, buckle the Christinn's aiinor on, 

While you fight for freedom and life." 

Gently he speaks to his mother's heart, 
With sorrow and anguish riven ; 
" Weep not for the lost, but evermore lean 
For thy stay and su])port on Heaven." 

To all who have known and loved him here 
His voice conies, urging them on ; 

Bidding them not lay their armor aside, 
Till Victory and Heaven are won. 



Annie. 



* See Pnge 1' of the Sermon. 



OBITUARY. 



BY D . 1) . I! A X L E T T , A . M 



Died June 27, 1864, inconsequence of" a wound received before 
Petersburg on June 17, 1864, Sergeant Edward A. Adams, of Co. E, 
59th Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, aged 24 years and 7 months. 
Amid the glorious army of martyrs, whose life blood shed for a country 
struggling in humanity's behalf testifies ever as a cloud of witnesses, to 
the pure patriotism and self sacrificing heroism of the sons of New 
England, it is difficult where all so well deserve their Country's praises 
to single out any for self abnegation, for valor, for true nobleness of 
soul, for voluntaiy submission to, and patient endurance of the hard- 
ships and trials of a soldier's life. But in the present instance a 
widowed mother laments the untimely death of her last born and only 
child. Those who know her other losses may well express their sym- 
pathy for her present deep affliction. Those similarly though scarce 
equally bereft may condole with her in the loss of a son whose strong 
right arm promised a staff and support to her declining years. 

When the last call for troops was made, and the old Bay State 
was earnestly and gallantly striving to raise the quota by voluntary 
enlistments, the subject of this brief sketch was the first in his native 
place to enroll his name as a private soldier in his Country's service. 
He had long meditated the act but had questioned whether duty re- 
quired him to yield to his Country the claims a widowed mother had 
upon her only surviving child; once resolved he made haste to acquit 
himself of his duty. Not content with the bare gift of his name, he 
was earnest and indefatigable in his subsequent effort to fill the quota 
of his native town ; and in public meetings there held, as in every town 
in Massachusetts, his eloquent appeals, cogent reasonings and most 
persuasive tongue induced one after another of his fellow townsmen to 
enlist, and the required quota was speedily filled ; — none more zealous, 
more earnest, more enthusiastic in the good cause than he. 



2S 

Subsequently, and until the departure of his regiment, he gave 
himself entirely to the labor of recruiting, he addressed many public 
assemblies in towns and villages adjacent to Boston ; and wherever his 
persuasive voice was heard its power was acknowledged, his influence 
felt. His uncompromising loyalty, his brilliant advocacy of the claims the 
Coiintry had upon her every son, his genial address, his eloquence, but 
above all his soldier's garb in which he stood forth to urge by example 
his peers in age to become his comrades on the field, had each their 
appropriate weight, and his labors were attended with special success. 

He left the State with his regiment, and with it be has shared the 
splendid glories and undying honors of this grand, to him brief, cam- 
paign, thus early in his career has he given the sanction of his blood to 
his heart felt labors, and Massachusetts, has lost in him a noble and 
promising son. 



LItiRrtRY OF CONGRESS 



013 704 017 7 



